Welcome to the 2016-17 cycle!

[guest56436]

Political science undergraduate majors are highly disconnected from grad school. I reckon that programs don't want to alienate potential majors by making it methodologically strenuous. Virtually any poli sci major can get through by only having to take one vague 'empirical methods' course. You may have to take a quantitative requirement to get your degree as a university-wide requirement but these are rarely very specific.

The only ones who have any training are those who actively sought it out.

That being said, I really don't think you need a lot to really prepare yourself for graduate studies in poli sci...differential and integral calculus, intro to stats, and maybe linear algebra + discrete math would be ample to have a good foundation going in.

[Monody]

28 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

Political science undergraduate majors are highly disconnected from grad school. I reckon that programs don't want to alienate potential majors by making it methodologically strenuous. Virtually any poli sci major can get through by only having to take one vague 'empirical methods' course. You may have to take a quantitative requirement to get your degree as a university-wide requirement but these are rarely very specific.

The only ones who have any training are those who actively sought it out.

That being said, I really don't think you need a lot to really prepare yourself for graduate studies in poli sci...differential and integral calculus, intro to stats, and maybe linear algebra + discrete math would be ample to have a good foundation going in.

I thought more about set and measure theory and matrix algebra. I am also currently working through Econometrics by Hayashi and Ive to say that I feel that I need this kind of training to understand what I should do to get the correct results without just proclaiming "I follow x (xxxx) by applying estimator y". Maybe that's just the area I am interested in, but there appears to be so much bad work (method wise) that is being published that I think that I would like to get all the training and knowledge I can get to avoid that kind of stuff simply for knowing that I am not going to be a part of the problem. 

Edited January 18, 2017 by Monody

[resDQ]

11 minutes ago, Monody said:

I thought more about set and measure theory and matrix algebra. I am also currently working through Econometrics by Hayashi and Ive to say that I feel that I need this kind of training to understand what I should do to get the correct results without just proclaiming "I follow x (xxxx) by applying estimator y". Maybe that's just the area I am interested in, but there appears to be so much bad work (method wise) that is being published that I think that I would like to get all the training and knowledge I can get to avoid that kind of stuff simply for knowing that I am not going to be a part of the problem. 

I think everyone has their own personal goals. After grad school, some people have time to keep up with the latest methods and others do not (heavy teaching load + family). You still need to publish to get tenure. I think math is easy to learn if you put effort into it. The ability to come up with good research questions is not obtained as easily, however.

[Monody]

4 minutes ago, resDQ said:

I think everyone has their own personal goals. After grad school, some people have time to keep up with the latest methods and others do not (heavy teaching load + family). You still need to publish to get tenure. I think math is easy to learn if you put effort into it. The ability to come up with good research questions is not obtained as easily, however.

Well, if you see it like this, of course you are right and I see that there are other strenuous commitments. On the other hand, I have problems seeing how the community's knowledge should advance if half of it is built on sand, no matter how ingenuous they research idea. That is not to say that there isnt great work out there, just that a lot of published work disappoints more than it has to.

[resDQ]

2 minutes ago, Monody said:

Well, if you see it like this, of course you are right and I see that there are other strenuous commitments. On the other hand, I have problems seeing how the community's knowledge should advance if half of it is built on sand, no matter how ingenuous they research idea. That is not to say that there isnt great work out there, just that a lot of published work disappoints more than it has to.

 

I agree with you. I do not believe that OLS is the answer to everything and I wish some more recent articles I've read would treat it as such.

[advark]

MIT posts are trolls (source: called the dept.). 

 

UT Austin - I do not know what is going on. 

[Monody]

6 minutes ago, advark said:

MIT posts are trolls (source: called the dept.). 

 

UT Austin - I do not know what is going on. 

Are you sure? I can see why they may reject someone whose top choice wasn't MIT. -.-

[advark]

3 minutes ago, Monody said:

Are you sure? I can see why they may reject someone whose top choice wasn't MIT. -.-

 

They said they cannot give out results via phone and decisions are not made. Unless, I spoke to the wrong person, you can consider them trolls. 

[Monody]

4 minutes ago, advark said:

 

They said they cannot give out results via phone and decisions are not made. Unless, I spoke to the wrong person, you can consider them trolls. 

I wasn't serious, but thank you for calling them. 

Edited January 18, 2017 by Monody

[BellaAung]

Hello,

Anyone applying to Canadian or European schools for Fall 2017? I applied to UBC, Oxford, Simon Fraser, LSE, SOAS, and CEU. Just submitted my applications a week or two ago so I know I should not be this anxious about knowing the results yet, but I can't help but panic! 

Also, does 6 sound like a good number of schools? I'm thinking of applying to a couple more but still debating... Best of luck, everyone!

[resDQ]

2 hours ago, advark said:

is it possible that UT Austin is handling acceptances/rejections by subfield?

either the trolls read this and responded or you are on to something. 

 

[waterloo715]

Has anyone reached out to UT-Austin to confirm that decisions have indeed been made?

[advark]

17 minutes ago, resDQ said:

either the trolls read this and responded or you are on to something. 

 

:\

7 minutes ago, waterloo715 said:

Has anyone reached out to UT-Austin to confirm that decisions have indeed been made?

I have not. Phone call with MIT was awkward enough. Someone else can do it. 

[PaperTrowel]

Rejected this morning via website by GWU. Program wasn't a great fit and I know I struggled with the shorter SOP but still disappointing as a first result.

[guest56436]

Can I ask why people apply to programs that 'aren't great fits?'

[resDQ]

3 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

Can I ask why people apply to programs that 'aren't great fits?'

For me,  a great fit is having multiple (over 3 faculty) that I could make a committee out of. Anything that is 3 or less is just an "ok" fit. I did not apply to any programs where there is only 1 person I can work with (afraid they would leave once I got there). However, I have a preference of going to grad school with two potential advisors rather than not going at all. I made some allowances for programs that are traditionally small, but have great training. Applicants have program preferences just as those on committee have preferences and most likely ranked us (formally or informally). 

 

[tkid86]

11 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

Can I ask why people apply to programs that 'aren't great fits?'

I agree with resDQ. In addition, I also applied to programs in D.C. that were perhaps teeter on the edge of an "ok" fit because of their location and symbolic/cultural capital. With the direction that I may hope to go in career-wise, being in D.C. and building that network is not a bad idea.

[krapp]

Same as what the folks above have said. I didn't apply to programs that were bad fits. More like some are good fits and others are reasonable/solid fits.

Also, the growing trickle of decisions just pushed me to log back in and check each application. Only the GWU one for me so far.

[RevTheory1126]

5 hours ago, advark said:

MIT posts are trolls (source: called the dept.). 

My favorite MIT troll line, in response to a rejection: "uncalled for"... lol! I think I would say the same  

[changeisgood]

18 hours ago, vitaminquartet said:

When people post results, can they please post GRE/GPA and subfield?  

I will when I get all my results in, but not yet.

[advark]

10 minutes ago, changeisgood said:

I will when I get all my results in, but not yet.

 

I don't think posting GRE/GPA and subfield prevents trolling. 

[changeisgood]

6 hours ago, resDQ said:

I think everyone has their own personal goals. After grad school, some people have time to keep up with the latest methods and others do not (heavy teaching load + family). You still need to publish to get tenure. I think math is easy to learn if you put effort into it. The ability to come up with good research questions is not obtained as easily, however.

So far from what I've seen, there are a lot of people doing a lot of heavy duty math in our field, but the ones that do this kind of work often struggle to attach any meaning to what they are doing.  Math is nice, math is pretty, but if you're not contributing something to improve behavior outcomes, institutional operation, etc. or whatever your particular flavor is, it's just mental gymnastics for the sake of fiddling around.  I can't tell you how many methods articles I've read that end with something like "we really can't say much about the implications of all this, except to say that we need to use this method more often".

[changeisgood]

4 hours ago, resDQ said:

For me,  a great fit is having multiple (over 3 faculty) that I could make a committee out of. Anything that is 3 or less is just an "ok" fit. I did not apply to any programs where there is only 1 person I can work with (afraid they would leave once I got there). However, I have a preference of going to grad school with two potential advisors rather than not going at all. I made some allowances for programs that are traditionally small, but have great training. Applicants have program preferences just as those on committee have preferences and most likely ranked us (formally or informally). 

 

x3.  All of the programs I applied to had at least 2 potential advisors among the faculty, some had 3 or more.  There's no point in going somewhere you're not going to be happy just because they're a few points higher on the USNWR rankings.

[ngsam191]

Someone posted an acceptance from Northwestern. Troll again? Just wonder if it's the same person doing all this trolling,

[advark]

5 minutes ago, ngsam191 said:

Someone posted an acceptance from Northwestern. Troll again? Just wonder if it's the same person doing all this trolling,

If there isn't another one within 1hr, it is pretty safe to assume troll. Northwestern post is a definite troll. 

 

The problem is when you have multiple postings and several users here have not heard from the school.